When Even The Punt Fails

Projects can be on-time, within budget, meet the specifications and still be a failure. Case in point, the new Dallas 160x72 foot mega screen. It seems the screen displays what it should, but is positioned a bit too low. So low, that on August 21st, the punter kicked a ball into it. Did someone forget the purpose of the stadium was playing football?

Successful Projects Deliver Value

Delivering within the normal bounds is often insufficient. If it takes 15% more time or money to make a useful and valuable product, it should not be classified as a failure.

This year, the Standish Group, in its well-known annual CHAOS Report, states:

[R]esults show a decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding (delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions); 44% were challenged (late, over budget, and/or with less than the required features and functions); and 24% failed (cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used).

However, value is missing from their qualifiers. "Late, over budget" is not necessarily a designation of failure or even challenged. "Less than the required features and functions," might mean failure, given these features provide value. Delivering features and functions that fail to provide value wastes time and money. Removing these features may bring the project back to its budgeted parameters.

It is critical that all parties achieve value in the project; otherwise, the project is doomed. One party failing to achieve their value will continue to pull the project in a direction to gain value, inevitably lowering the other party's value. For instance, for a product with improper scope, the customer will push for different features lowering the supplier's profit. The supplier with too little margin, will cut corners on scope or quality to reduce their cost and chew into the customer's value. It becomes an adversarial spiral toward failure.

The Project Manager's Responsibility

The project manager must question the value throughout the project's lifecycle. To do this effectively, the project structure must expose the value, or lack thereof, as early as possible. The customer should be able to get access to the product as soon as possible. Prototypes, mockups and demos can provide an ability to punch buttons, simulate workflow or visualize its placement. This helps uncover misconceptions in the product and allow early cost-effective change. Many project methodologies do not readily accommodate this, hence the project manager needs to lobby for the change.

The Culture

In most organizations, this is a foreign concept—the methodology and justification are givens at the project's start. Not only that, but project managers are rewarded for decreasing cost, minimizing changes and running and uneventful project. Questioning the project's premise is often considered insubordinate. Agile projects break this mold by empowering the team to ask these questions and ensure there is value. Other methodologies can do the same.

About That Screen...

Knowing nothing of the Cowboys' culture, or their owner Jerry Jones, I have to think there might a slight issue of pointing out problems. It took the NFL to have the manufacture's ad moved from below the screen, a direct result of Mr. Trapasso's punt. Someone may have said there was a problem, but judging from Mr. Jone's comments he appears to think it is the punter's problem. I would wager a guess the problem is somewhere else.

To adapt to this method of management, the project manager must understand the value for both parties and continually question the project's premise. This requires understanding the customer's and supplier's goals as well as the delivery team's capabilities. A mismatch in any area will result in dismal results. The project manager must attain and maintain the value throughout the project, being an honest broker for all parties. Status quo may by a course to failure. Every change request steers the project closer to or further from success. If value appears elusive or unattainable, it is better for the project to fail early. A project manager shows leadership by highlighting these issues.

Obviously, Mr. Jones really felt being in the Guinness book of world records was more valuable than the occasional replay.

Related items

Process is at the core of any business. It makes work predictable, repeatable, and transferable. Without it we cannot scale our businesses. However, process can be a bane to making progress. Processes that work for a $10 million company have difficulties supporting a $30 million company. Trying to scale them to a $300 million company will not only fail but not address the issues that larger companies have that were never dreamt of in a smaller organization. Processes need to be discarded, revamped, and built—all of that without creating an overburdening bureaucracy.

Anytime you need to go someplace, you first have to know where you are. Processes are never static and your company's current state is probably far from where you think it is. Hence, the first step is mapping out you company's current state followed by defining the future state. This is more than a logical map of the process; it must also include physical maps. Whether your process is solely to provide a service (say, website development) or physical (say, manufacturing) there are logistical issues that complicate the process flow. Without fully understanding those nuances, future state processes will not reach the desired efficiencies.

For more information about process mapping fill out the form to the left and we will get in touch with you.

The other day a Latvian student contacted me for my views the connection between culture and success criteria—an important and intriguing topic. After working in Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Israel, United States, and Canada, I wear many scars of both blatant and subtle cultural violations. I also know that within a culture one person's success is often another person's failure. So, after dispelling concerns about clicking on some random email link, I completed her survey (please feel free to take it yourself). In the process, I struck up a friendship with the student, Kristine Briežkalne, who is studying at Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration . She has some interesting views and presented me with a Venn diagram showing four frames to a project (business, client, project management, and growth perspectives) and how they intersected. As the diagram is part of her Master's thesis, I will let you ponder the how to label the overlapping areas (an eye-opening exercise).

There is a reason we do not teach classes on fixing failing projects. Many a cynic feels that we simply do not want to teach our trade, however, our reason is far nobler—we should be teaching prevention rather trying to create white knights to save the day. It is the same philosophy as building a fence at the cliff's edge rather than an emergency room at its base. Our language is replete with idioms telling us to look past the symptom and address problems at their root cause. 'An ounce of prevention versus a pound of cure' or 'a stitch in time saves nine.' Please, feel free to supply your own in the comments. Unfortunately, most of our businesses loathe this philosophy, waiting to address an issue until it is irrefutably broken.

It was such an innocuous question, "Working on an article; what is the biggest problem you see with project governance at orgs? Can you comment?" Can I comment? Really? That is like cheese to a mouse. Where could I start—bureaucracy, draconian process, poor executive sponsorship, disengaged leaders? Plenty of fodder, because they all lead to project failure. I fired off, "Creating an over bureaucratic morass stifling innovation & implementing process instead of cultivating leaders." Then the maelstrom started and it went directly to the gap between the executives and projects managers. Naomi Caietti, Robert Kelly and I had a great conversation. Most of the thread is below.

After nearly 30 years of project work, I struggle to understand the role of a project management office (PMO). Even though, I have written of the pros and cons, and read a plethora of articles, opinions, and how-to guides little has been done to convince me that the PMO is reducing project failure. It seems to be nothing more than a tool to fill a void in leadership? Even the acronym, which is so widely thrown around, has little meaning as the "P" has no less than four meanings. It is an executive's crutch for their lack of understanding in how projects work. These, like other, unattended holes in the corporate accountability create opportunities for new and greater bureaucracies and empires that further obfuscate accountability.